Writing is a deceptively easy profession to enter. All you need is a computer or a notebook and an idea. Write it, submit it, and bask in the warmth of publication. I am still amazed at the number of people who believe that or, even if slightly skeptical, still harbor a strong emotion that even if not true, it should be.
Reading and Writing
The relationship between reading and writing is as cohesive as a chemical bond. We could say with surety that you cannot write if you cannot read. The axiom which we all should grasp intuitively is that the quality of your writing is proportional to the quality of your reading. Unfortunately, being a good writer does not mean you are above reading junk. We all know that a bath in mud will often tickle our muse.
During our development as writers, we read numerous examples of classical “great” books, such as War And Peace and A Tale of Two Cities. Classical literature teaches us how to use style to weave a story so engaging that it hooks you into wanting to know how things get resolved. Often, great books teach us how to elevate common material into great plots using only the manipulation of words. For example, consider the boredom of a steamship voyage between two points and then read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Likewise, the best movie about the war in Viet Nam, Apocalypse Now is based on the themes developed by Joseph Conrad.
I’m Not Going to write the next Great American Novel
I’m a blogger, a romance writer, a science fiction writer, a freelancer who writes by assignment. What does reading have to do with what I want to do? Everything!
While you journey from high school thru University graduation day, you will probably read enough “good literature“ to last you for years of writing. All those hours struggling through what seemed to be dry, musty words thrown together with little interest in any form of action or consequence have really paid off. Believe it or not, you have developed a library of correct grammatical syntax and a working understanding of how to manipulate style and structure.
Your writing should copy your reading
Reading Le Misérables by Victor Hugo is like reading the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. It is a novel painted in your mind. The words are beautiful, the actions brutal. Hugo writes about human suffering as the precursor to a perfect orgasm. Yet, if you see the musical or the movie, it is not the language of Victor Hugo. It is the language we speak and read every day. If you write with the words you read, your content will be understood. This is not another admonition to “write the way you speak.” Hopefully, you do not use “ain’t” in your writing as often as you do in your speech.
What you Read Influences What and How You Write
Some years ago, while my children were learning to read and block print, I watched one of their classmates print a short story. I remember it word for word because it impressed me. Here it is…..”Jack and Jill went up the hill. Jack hit Jill with his pail. His mommy was really mad.” In those three sentences are a novel, a short story, and even a screenplay. All that is lacking are a few more years of serious reading, and there is a best seller. For a five-year-old, that is good writing. So if you see the possibilities lurking in that short story, you are a writer in waiting.
You may want to write about relationships between siblings, spouses, and partners. You can read numerous psychology tombs about the subject and become well versed in the matter. If you are writing for a technical journal or professional publication, you will have a strong foundation for your writing.
If you are planning a novel, a short story, or if you are interpreting an event that happened between two or more intimately connected people, wouldn’t your emotions and your understanding be far better served by reading Mario Puzo’s The GodFather and Tennessee William’s, Night Of The Iguana. Lacking all the technical jargon, the book and the play put emotions and feelings into real words that come out of fictional characters who speak and scream the universal truths of the human condition.
You cannot feel every emotion. You cannot meet every person. You can feel far more than you are entitled to feel. You can embrace your neighbor on the next block; you can dance with something from another universe. You do it with words, written and spoken.
Summary
There are no more original ideas. The last one was scratched under a painting in or near the Chauvet Cave. Jules Verne described the power and technology behind nuclear fusion in great detail long before Albert Einstein drew his first breath. Two things elevated Einstein to almost a scientific deity:
1) He found the rock on which the equation was written.
2) He could read the language on the rock.
If you want to write well, read to the level at which you desire to write.